Spellogue, what do you know about what causes that sort of spongy with holes appearance that I see on the photo of them in the mini-cave? I've recently had several cheeses including Mozz have that sort of spongy look and I don't know whether it's a yeast contamination? or something worse? Or about the time of year/lactation? Do you have any clues? Anyone else?
In this case they are mechanical holes. The curd was firmer than it probably should have been and it didn't compress much, being an unpressed cheese. I'll go for a more tender curd and use a smaller volume of milk on my next Taleggio.
The curd on this make, before and after the cut, was quite smooth. It didn't exhibit any gas holes going into the mold. Funny too, because I might have expected some sponginess to the curd in this make having clabbered a quarter of the milk and adding beer yeast in the vat.
I usually end up with a spongy curd mass floating in the whey in my lactic makes. I can't say for sure what the isolated sources of those gasses might be. It could be the MM100, or I suppose more likely natural flora in the raw milk, or ambient contamination (lots of yeast floating around my kitchen from all the other projects from kefir to sourdough.) I haven't found the sponginess of the curd mass in those makes to present any real problem in the finished cheeses. In the softer lactic coagulations the ladled curd normally compresses under its own weight for me in the mold, and they've generally tasted quite good.
Seems I have seen a bit of sponginess in the cut curd of rennet coagulated makes here and there, but I don't know that I would have recorded that in my notes well enough to make any conclusions about it. I plan to review my notes thoroughly this winter in planning next season's make list. That review might reveal something.
I've only ever used raw milk in my cheeses. Perhaps pasteurizing the milk before a make might provide some insight. I might try that next season.